Sharada Maligireddy


Introduction:


Hello
My name is Sharada. I studied and worked briefly as a Civil Engineer while in India. My husband and I moved to US in late '90s. Having & raising children here with access to abundance of learning venues, both physical and digital, nudged us towards homeschooling. We lived in Florida until 2013 and moved to Reno, Nevada . Volunteering has been one of the main components of our homeschooling. While in Florida, we worked closely with Society of St. Andrews Gleaning Network and also the Clean the World Organizations. We were also beneficiaries of various museums, outreach programs in the neighboring counties, public libraries as well as the wonderful teachers that we came across in our children's life.
Having 'lost' my other son to the Davidson Academy, I currently home school my youngest son only. My husband now works from home and continues to love and support the rest of us both by choice and by habit.
My sons and couple of their friends, and I are currently trying to develop a service project based in our local Arboretum in the hopes to fill the need, as perceived by us, of the community. Volunteering with HCLE is an opportunity for me to give back to the community , albeit a small way, but I do know, like every other such opportunities, I will end up being indebted to.



Profile:

Education: B.Tech Civil Engineering, JNTU College of Engineering, Hyderabad India (1989-93)

Educator Experience: k-12 educator /Home Schooling Parent, Volunteered at public school to help students failing in High School Math. Involved in editing curriculum for a non profit organization (Clean the World ). Worked part time as scoring evaluator for McGrawHill. Currently developing ACAI (Arboretum Community Academic Initiative) with Wilbur D.May Arboretum.
I am currently serving as a member of Board of Directors for the May Arboretum Society , Reno.

Programming Languages: FORTRAN , Oracle PL/SQL

Metadata Team:

Svetlana Ushakova
Lee Richardson
Jessica Strom Lynn
Metadata Team Communication: Please Click Here to Communicate with Metadata Team.


Communication:


Attn Metadata team:
Sharada: Today (9/11/2015) I finished adding Metadata Team links to each of the team members page .
I started looking into Preservation View page on the catalog.

Attn Liza:

Sharada to Liza: 9/11/2015 12:51

Liza, this explains why I never got a reply from you before my meeting with Anita .
My questions (1 through 6) were with reference to my meeting with Anita, not for hcle meetings.


I understand. This is a good example of what I'm getting at when I ask you to be clearer. You had two meetings scheduled for Thursday, one with Anita and one with HCLE. I had no way to guess which meeting your were asking about. This is not an Indian/American miscommunication due to cultural difference. When you write a sentence, stop and reread it with this question in your mind: Is there any way for the reader to interpret these words other than the meaning I intend? If the answer is yes, you need to add more detail to the sentence to direct the reader to the parts of your thoughts that you didn't write down the first time through. Nobody is perfect at this but the more information you can include, the more likely I'll be to understand your questions.

Sharada: I agree.

Note to self: But another reason was that was the only meeting that I was aware of when I was writing. Either I didn't get the invitation at that time or must have overlooked the email regarding meeting with Tom/ meeting invitation from Tom. I linked email app on my Nokia and sometimes instead of browsing through the stack of mails , I look up the specific message and reply - and end up missing the rest of the email thread etc,. I will change that habit.


I need few pointers regarding Thursday meeting.
!. Should I take printed material regarding the stories we are seeking and Pioneers we are hoping to find .

LL 20150909 23:24 Are you asking whether you should explain the Pioneer work you are doing to Tom and me during the meeting?



No. Just say that your are working on a specific person and put a link in the agenda to the page where you are collecting your information. There isn't time in these overview meetings to go into details of the work each volunteer is doing. The purpose of the meeting is to make sure Tom and I know what others are doing. We will want a brief description of your project when you have it organized, one progress report when you are about 1/2 way through and a final report when it is finished. Only discuss the details in meetings designated for that project or team.

2.Same with the volunteer needs.
LL 20150909 23:24 Bring them up separately with Liza, before the meeting. We'll decide together whether to bring your needs to Tom.
3.Can you come up with few collaboration project ideas that we can propose for now.
LL 20150909 23:24 Propose to whom? We don't have people to do more projects. You and I should outline specific tasks and a time schedule for you and not generate work for others. When you have completed an assignment we can look for another one for you. If you have an idea while you are in the middle of one project put it in the idea bucket so you won't forget it while you're working on the current project.
4. I guess you can give me details to serve as an example of the intern who just finished his work with HCLE.
LL 20150909 23:24 You and I can review Jon's page on the phone.
5. I am still going to seek advise regarding accessing their proposed History course .
LL 20150909 23:38. Yes, following up with Anita is one of your projects. See Tasks 2 & 3
6. Anything else I am missing?
LL 20150909 23:48 I think we need to be more specific about your tasks. It would be best if each one is defined clearly enough for you to work on it for 3 or 4 days without needing more input from me. Did you finish Task 1? If so, please write up a little report. Task 3 will take some time so we don't need to talk about it unless you get an idea for a new task from the course. You're working on 4 & 5. 6 isn't a task really. It's just something you can do if you choose. It's important that you not dominate these meeting with details about your tasks unless you need something from Tom. We have to leave time for everyone to give their brief reports and for Tom and me to work on our tasks together. If you want to stay in the meeting after your part of the agenda is completed you should stay in the role of observer. Tasks 8,9, & 10 need more definition. Let's schedule a meeting with just the two of us to do this.

Thanks

Digital preservation of Artifacts: What technology are we using to gather 3D information for some of the artifacts? For example First Apple or IBM1500 etc, would be extremely appealing if we can present in 3D format. I am assuming,there might be more and more interest or need for 3D exhibits, especially if we were to reach out to my kids age or their next generation population.
Or if we ever can have enough financial support to come up with virtual theme park :).

LL 20150908 12:57:
Sandeep can use either Mac's Numbers, MS Excel or a Google Docs Spread Sheet. They can be exported to CSV files and retrieve into the other apps.

Sandeep, please create a Volunteer page for yourself on the wiki. Welcome aboard!

From meeting chat 20150908: Liza: I found one contact phone number, and updated in the list, for some one on pioneer list nominated by you. I believe its the person who created? PLATO system. He is still at one of the Carolina Universities. You might want to follow up with him.LL 20150908 12:34: Who is the person? -

Dr.Bitzer Donald

Idea Bucket: is it possible to create different 'portals' so the same exhibits present themselves with different presentation styles to suit the visitor's individual demographic(specifically age group etc,.) ?
LL 20150908 12:36: Yes, it's possible but difficult. Let's start with a few simple exhibits and develop the "presentation styles" separately.

For Idea Bucket : Is it possible to track the participants of Brentwood Elemenatary School's CAI Project of 60's?
LL 20150908 12:34: Yes, it's possible. This would make an excellent Master's Thesis or PhD Dissertation in History, Anthropology, Urban Studies, Black Studies, or Technology and Culture. It shouldn't be undertaken causally because it will be an enormous amount of work. We should have a Section on the Wiki, under Research, that lists the topics we would like someone to study.

In that case can we still aim to gather few stories of past participants with the help of Brentwood Elementary for now ?

Sharada: Do we have an Idea Bucket?
LL 20150908 12:34: Please make an Idea Buck page for everyone to use and link all your ideas back here.

Sharada: Can someone point to me to a book list section where I can save the books' details to explore more- to identify potential pioneers or to better prepare for the interview questions etc, please. Thanks!
LL 20150908 12:34: Make a Book list page. It should have the bibliography information and a short summary of what is in the book. Usually each book will be of interest to people on one of our teams or projects. Each book should have an "anchor". On the team and project pages you can then add links to the books that are useful resources on that topic. If the book is within our time period and/or talks about an HCLE topic, it should be entered into our catalog with a link to an online copy or where a physical copy can be found.

Just thinking out loud. Will 'CAI to ILS ' as an part of any exhibit work? OR dr. Suppes and Dr. Atkinson to Josten? Learnings of ILS .


LL 20150908 12:34: Yes, it will work to start as an exhibit concept. Material on Suppes, Atkinson and Josten should be collected at individual catalog and repository items. You can arrange the items and draft narrative that ties them together on an exhibit_working page. When that page has been elaborated and edited to (at the moment) my satisfaction it can become a published exhibit. We might decide to arrange the material differently, perhaps as a series of Pioneer Profiles and a Retrospective on Jostens. We could then tie these together as a "guided tour".


Sharada to Liza:
my first goal was to familiarize myself with the wikis and learn little more about the project and start this page. At this point I am open to suggestions for how and in which direction to go next. Thanks!

Liza 20150826:14:03
Congratulations, Sharada. You're launched. Some suggestions:
1. List your skills, including programming languages and applications you already know in your profile. This helps all HCLE participants know when to ask you for help in the tasks they are undertaking.
2. In your Goals and Objectives, try to be very narrow and specific. For example, we are using the Wikispaces platform at the moment so it will help us if you become an expert Wikispaces editor. However, we are exploring a move to MediaWiki. Editing on that platform is quite different. Do you want to learn both or would you rather specialize? We also use WordPress and CiviCRM platforms which are built on MySQL, php, html and css. You might want to either develop skill with one of these or take on a task that uses your existing knowledge.
3. As I recall our phone conversation you mentioned that you would like to explore changing careers outside of programming. We have lots of work that doesn't require programming at all. If you want to move into research, historical writing, journalism and interviewing, exhibit design or administration you need not focus on your engineering and IT background much at all. Being comfortable with online platforms will only make it easier for you to branch out into one or more of these fields. Think about it and be sure your urge to contribute includes contributing to yourself.
4. As you log your volunteer hours include ALL the time you spend with HCLE. This means the time you spend updating this page, the hours you are studying to upgrade the skills you might use on our behalf, all meeting and phone call time and even those moments when you are daydreaming about something you might write for us or the directions you think we might take the project. Every minute you are thinking about us counts as a donation to us even if it also helps you. We monetize these minutes at 3 per hours rates: $12.50 for "unskilled" labor (mental or physical), $25 for most adult tasks regardless of skill or educational level, $50 for professional consultation that would normally cost between $100 to $500 if we had to come up with the cash. In certain cases we negotiate contracts, determine a bid price for the work and then the contractor donates the work instead of actually collecting the fee. In all these cases the volunteer or donated work counts as "revenue" for LO*OP Center and can appear on funding application budgets as "matching funds". This is why your Volunteer Hours chart is important to us.

Sharada :
Liza, this helps.

Goals and Objectives:

1. (a)Understand of scope and specifics of the project by reviewing wiki, (b)CiviCRM, (c)Catalog Maintenance System, (d)grant proposals and (e)discussions with Liza.

2. Acquire skills to edit Wikispaces first and then move to MediaWiki by ??.

3. Acquire skills to work on WordPress and CiviCRM by mid September.

4. Interact with people to promote or acquire knowledge that can be transferred to meet the objectives of volunteering for HCLE.
5.FaceBook Page
(LL: 4 and 5 are not goals. Try again to express as a general but achievable outcome. List specific tasks to be accomplished to meet goals in Specific Tasks. Goals should be met within 60 hour commitment. Tasks are much shorter and can be tagged as completed)

Specific Tasks:
1.Pursue Nevada Educator's Association for possible leads to identify pioneers in Nevada
  • Outcome??
  • 9/15/15 19:15 : No response yet.
  • Timeframe??

2.Establish contact and explore collaboration opportunities with History Department of UNR, specifically Shared Digital History Course team.
  • Outcome??
  • Good start. Possible future collaboration, and agreed to help with Oral History part (time permitting for ANita). Have potentially access to space for conducting interviews for Oral History.
  • Gave good referral for potential new volunteers
  • Next action??
  • Follow up with Mr.Vincent and Naomi, scheduled meeting with History Department Advisor Prof.Kevin
  • Timeframe??
  • Meeting with Kevin on 9/15 at 12:30 to explore the option /access to UNR History 300A course. Liza to follow up with Mr.Vincent.

3.Complete one course to acquire the skills and discipline of history gleaning.
  • Timeframe??
    • Meeting with Kevin on 9/15 at 12:30 to explore the option /access to UNR History 300A course. Will know the answer for the next question at the meeting.
    • !9:15 9/15/15: Learned that it is quite possible to get permission from the instructor to audit for the class without formally enrolling. Will pursue further before the scheduled spring session for Hist300A

  • Cash requirement??
Parking fees.

4.Explore contributions and contact information for Dr. Richard C. Atkinson
  • Outcome??
  • Enter info into CiviCRM
  • Create wiki page using your suggested ETP Profile format

5.Explore Brentwood? Elementary Project directed by Dr. Atkinson : reference CAI ,Suppes
  • Enter info into CiviCRM
  • Create Topical exhibit wiki page using your suggested online exhibit format

6.Attend Monthly google hangout meetings with Liza and/ or Tom
  • Communicate with Liza weekly or biweekly for updates and further instructions

  • Meet with Metadata Team as needed to complete assigned tasks


7.Volunteer Page - Page is set up. Update daily or weekly depending on level of activity

8.Enter ETPs in the Pioneers page as new candidates are discovered

9.brainstorm new ways of organizing wiki, create links on existing pages to make navigation easier, design process guides that will help new volunteers do the specific tasks you have already done well.

10.Identify and follow up with potential Story contributors (medium priority)

11. Beta testing Catalog with Jessica, Lee, Liza and Svetlana (metadata team) (high priority)
  • Hold online meeting with team to outline tasks and assign them
  • Decide on how results will be recorded
  • Hold second meeting to review results and prepare report. Choose one person to deliver report.
  • Set up and hold meeting with Stan to discuss implementation of findings
  • Report at next appropriate monthly meeting

12. Investigate people from this web site Encounters with HCI Pioneers. Determine which ones are ETP candidates. Crosscheck existing ETP list and add candidates who are not yet listed. Add ETP pages as needed. Add link to HCI site and any other data on each pioneer. Crosscheck with Tom and Liza to see who has already been contacted and to make updated list of contact priorities. Reach out to any other researchers who are studying any of our ETPs. Invite other researchers to collaborate on our Profiles and offer our materials (with citation) to them. Arrange for video interviews where appropriate.

13. Learn CiviCRM
  • How to enter new people and organizations using existing interface
  • How to create new displays for both entering and reporting data
  • How to modify existing displays, for example how to add phone number to activity reports
*Figure out to get rid of right column on LIza CiviCRM page/dashboard.

14. Spend at least 10 hours going through the hcle wiki (Goal 1a) to get a reasonable grasp on the scope and mission of HCLE project wiki.
15. Create Incidental Expenses Page
16. Create and complete Pioneer Interview Guidelines.
See some more related tasks below.
  • explore npr story time?/oral histories
  • think about various components of a pioneer interviews , also explore ways to 'standardize' to the extent feasible with the goal to achieve uniformity in the raw data which will lend better for the final exhibits (edits).



Volunteer Hours

Date
Hours

Assignment
Accomplished
8/26
2

creating volunteer page
yes
8/31
2

Goals(G) :3
progress
9/1
4

G: 1,2,4
progress- pursuing one potential volunteer
9/2
3

Tasks(T):1,2,4 G:1,4
progress-sent out mail to NEA, Identified two potential candidates for pioneer page.
9/3
3

T:2,4,6,7,8 G:4
progress-Left a message for Anita / Shared (Digital) History Course team at UNR, Created new pages for pioneer section
9/4
2

T:2
Established contact with Anita. Waiting on scheduling for the meeting, continued researching ETPs.
9/5
2

G:1
covered some more sections of the current wiki for HCLE
9/6
2

G:1,4 T:10
Sought story from Satish Mahajan CIO, AAA.
9/7
3

T:8,5,3
Traced Dr.Bitzer Donald's contact information.Identified the right Brentwood Elementary to follow up later,progressing with Wordpress
9/8
1

T:6
Met with Mr.Tom and Alan and Liza through google Hangout.
9/8
2

T:7,2 ,9 G:1,4,3
Started Idea Bucket page,Edited Volunteer Page. confirmed meeting time with Anita UNR for 9/10, 9:30 am. Sought contacts with May Museum curator.
9/9
2

T:3 G:1,2
Completed Goal 1(a).
9/10
3

T:2
Met Anita. Made some progress. Also found another collaboration and /or learning venue for future volunteers (Naomi &Vincent Martin <-- UNR)
9/10
4

T:6a,13, 14 G:1
G1a/T14:Complete, T:Started with CiviCRM, found help to solve access issues for CiviCRM. added Metadata team section to some volunteers' pages as per Liza's instructions
9/11
1

Volunteer page updates

9/15
3

T:3a,T:15
Met Dr.Kevin. pointers to whom to contact for further exploration of collaboration with UNR, got more feedback about accessing the Shared History Project (for learning for self), follow up call with Liza to update and identify new/prioritizing current tasks including updating Volunteer page. Started new page to enter incidental expenses . Created page for Pioneer Interview Guidelines to be worked on later.